


Eleven Pancakes

by LittleRose13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Harry Potter’s birthday, Plotless Fluff, Tooth Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 13:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15511089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRose13/pseuds/LittleRose13
Summary: With Ginny’s help, he retrieved a stack of cards from a drawer in the bedside table, the cards Harry had pretended not to know were in there.”Give Albus and Lily theirs too,” Ginny prompted when James went to hand the whole pile to Harry in one.James looked momentarily confused. “But they’re not for Albus and Lily. They’re for Daddy.”





	Eleven Pancakes

“Ah da da da da!” 

Harry was awoken the way he was every morning: by his daughter, Lily, gleefully crying his name across the room from where she stood proudly in her cot with a huge grin on her face. It was impossible to feel anything but joy from this wake up call, especially when Harry glanced at the clock and noticed it  _ wasn’t  _ 6am.

“Good morning, Lily-Lu,” he said sweetly, pulling himself from the bed and crossing the room to pick her up. She snuggled into his arms and immediately pointed insistently at the bed where Ginny was stirring. 

“Ma ma ma ma,” Lily told him matter-of-factly, still pointing. After a second, in which she clearly decided Harry didn’t know what she meant and she started to wriggle to be put down, he placed Lily on top of the soft covers and watched her crawl speedily over them to Ginny’s pillow. 

Harry watched Lily experimentally stroke the red hair fanned across the pillow, her eyes lighting up when Ginny pulled her in close and kissed her head. “Morning, baby girl.” 

“Here’s a present,” Harry said sweetly, climbing back into bed. “Have a daughter. I’ve got the receipt if you want to exchange her.” 

“Never,” Ginny grinned wickedly, tickling Lily’s tummy. “Anyway, it’s your birthday, you get the presents.” 

Harry smiled and scooted closer to her when she sat up, tucking Lily between them. “Your presence is my present.”

“Well if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of wrapping everything up last night,” Ginny sighed. 

There was a scrabbling sound outside the door accompanied by the word  _ wait  _ spoken by what sounded like an insistent James. 

“You can come in, boys!” Harry called with a knowing smile.

The door eased open and James and Albus came running in, James in the lead. They scampered across the carpet and James launched himself head first onto the bed. Lily reached for him, her eyes wide and a huge grin on her face. Albus, in a more civilised entrance than his brother, ran to Harry’s side and threw his tiny arms around his neck. 

“It’s  _ your  _ birthday, Daddy!” he squealed excitedly, directly against Harry’s eardrum. 

“Happy birthday, Daddy!” James yelled so loudly he startled Lily, who turned to Ginny with her bottom lip wobbling.

Harry winced and scooped Albus up onto the bed to join his brother and sister. 

“You gets so many presents, Daddy,” Albus told him very seriously, his little hands clasping together in excitement. Then his expression turned to one of thought and he turned to Ginny. “When is it be  _ my  _ birthday?” 

“Not until January, my love,” she replied, smoothing his hair across the top of his head lovingly. 

“My birthday is soon!” James chipped in, still at an obscene volume. “When I’ll be  _ five _ and so big!” 

“I’m five!” Albus insisted. 

“No! You’re not five, Al!” James was staring at Albus in incredulous shock. “Albus is  _ not  _ five!” 

“I don’t want you to say I’m not five! I am five!” Albus’ face was one of hurt confusion and he gazed at Harry desperately, as if unable to understand why his brother was upset. 

Harry held up three fingers. “You’re three,” he tapped Albus lightly on the chest, “James is four,” he put up another finger and did the same to James, “but soon he will turn five.” He held his whole hand up.

“I will turn five,” Albus smiled.

“One day, eventually,” Harry agreed. 

“But I’m five  _ first,”  _ James muttered, looking sulky. 

“And I’m twenty-nine  _ today _ .”

His words left all trace of the argument forgotten as James’ expression lifted and he sprang off the bed. “Birthday cards!” 

With Ginny’s help, he retrieved a stack of cards from a drawer in the bedside table, the cards Harry had pretended not to know were in there. 

“Give Albus and Lily theirs too,” Ginny prompted when James went to hand the whole pile to Harry in one.

James looked momentarily confused. “But they’re not  _ for  _ Albus and Lily. They’re for Daddy.” 

“Yes, and this one is from Albus,” she took one of the cards and handed it to Albus who immediately clutched it close to his chest secretively, “and this one is from Lil.” 

Lily proudly flapped her card around then stuck the corner into her mouth and happily chewed. 

“Give it to Daddy, sweetie.” Ginny gestured encouragingly at Harry.

Lily held the card out but wasn’t too keen on letting go and instead just rubbed it against the back of Harry’s hand repeatedly. He picked her up under her arms and pulled her into his chest, where she sat comfortably and allowed him to open the card in front of her.

“Cuck!” baby Lily said happily, kicking her feet back and forth in Harry’s lap. 

“Book, yes, it looks like a book, doesn’t it?” Harry marvelled at his clever daughter for a second, before remembering everyone was waiting for him to open the card. 

“Dat’s not a book!” Albus cried, as if it were obvious. “Silly Lily.” He shook his head and chuckled. 

Harry eased open the envelope and turned the card over. There were five twigs glued in different horizontal positions, each with a small, paint handprint at one end. The handprints were clearly Lily’s and the effect made each twig look like a little broomstick. On each broomstick there was a stick figure drawn, but the head of each stick figure was a photo of each member of the Potter family. 

“Clever girl, making this all by yourself!” Harry spoke a bit louder than he meant to, a lump forming in his throat as he looked at the stick figures of his wife and children and then up at his real family surrounding him. 

“Yes, she’s quite the craftsman,” Ginny grinned and propped the card up on the bedside table. 

“Now me, mine!” Albus scrambled over with his card held aloft. He handed it over and waited patiently, sitting cross-legged in front of Harry.

Inside the envelope was a blue card, the front home to several random brush strokes in bright pink and orange. There were a few paintbrush hairs set into the paint at various points, which must have been part of the intended effect. Almost invisible underneath the paint were the words  _ happy birthday Daddy, love Albus _ in Ginny’s handwriting. 

“Dat says  _ Albus _ ,” his son said proudly, pointing at a splodge of yellow paint near the bottom.

“So it does, clever boy!” Harry kissed the top of Albus’ head and went to prop the card on the bedside table beside Lily’s. 

“Wait, you have to see the inside. It gets better.” Ginny looked very pleased with herself and Harry quirked an eyebrow at her smirk before opening the card.

Inside were a few more random paint blobs and a small picture of a wand with sparks, etched in gold in the middle.

“One of George’s new inventions,” Ginny explained, intercepting an escaping Lily as she spoke. “Nothing nasty, I promise. Tap it with your wand.”

Harry pulled Albus closer to him and retrieved his wand, tapping the golden symbol inside the card. It floated in the air in front of them but nothing else happened for a second. Then the card started to speak in Ginny’s voice.

“It’s started, go on!” She sounded like she was speaking from the other side of the room. 

A louder, closer-sounding voice took over, still issuing from inside the card and unmistakably singing. “ _ Happy birthday my Daddy. I love youuuuu. Daddy is birthday and today, happy birthday, todayyyyyy! It’s Daddy to birthday and it’s happy dayyyyy.”  _

“Say who it’s from, say your name,” Ginny’s voice spoke again after a pause in which Harry thought he felt his eyes fill with tears. 

“Albus Sevewus Potter,” Albus said very sincerely, as if he were giving his full name at the bank. 

The card fluttered softly down to the bed again and Lily clapped her hands, staring at it in wonder. 

“That was  _ amazing!” _ Harry grabbed Albus and pulled him in close, kissing him all over until he was giggling uncontrollably. “Did you make that song up all by yourself?”

Albus nodded proudly. “Uh-huh. And I maked all the words up!” 

Ginny propped the card up beside Lily’s and Harry caught her eye. “You know we have to keep that forever, don’t you. For when he brings his first girlfriend home,” he said quietly.

“Forever,” Ginny agreed in amusement and she suddenly put on a bright smile. “Jamesy, you’ve been so patient! Your turn now.” 

James beamed and reverently handed Harry his card. “Mine doesn’t have no singing.”

“I’m excited to see what it  _ does  _ have,” Harry replied and James squirmed in excitement. 

His card was larger than the other two, too big for an envelope, and across the top, in James’ wobbly writing, were the words  _ Daddy and Jamesy _ . Underneath were several pictures, all coloured in haphazardly with crayon. 

“I maded it at school and it’s no magic there so it just stays still,” James explained. 

“It’s beautiful, talk me through the pictures.” Harry scooted over so the card was between him and James.

James’ art could best be described as  _ abstract  _ and they’d coined the phrase  _ talk me through  _ when he started to get frustrated that nobody could tell what he’d drawn. 

“This is me and this is you,” James pointed at two faces, each with scribbly hair and one with oversized glasses and a hugely exaggerated lightning scar. 

“We look marvellous,” Harry commented.

“This is you teaching me to fly,” James continued to commentate the artwork. “Here is me cooking some pancakes with you, this is that time when I drinked that potion and you did a spell to fix my tummy, this is Albus and Lily and also me when you read us a story, this is me and you standing in Hogwarts.”

Although the pancakes and Lily’s face were drawn identically, Harry yet again found himself close to crying at the sweetness of the moments James had chosen to commemorate. A quick backtrack of James’ words changed that.

“Did you say you made this at school?” Harry asked dubiously.

“Yes! My teacher helped with the lines for the writing,” James explained.

“So, your teacher, did she see the art too?”

“She said I am  _ so imagitive!” _ James reported. 

“Imaginative,” Harry echoed. “Pictures of you flying a broomstick and drinking a potion and at a wizard school.” 

James put his finger to his lips. “But I didn’t say nothing about magic.” 

Ginny reached over and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “It’s so your turn to have the next concerned phonecall from his teacher, but as it’s your birthday, I’ll take this one.” 

Harry smiled and added James’ card to the other two. “Three perfect cards from my three perfect children.”

He spread his arms wide and wrapped them around Ginny and James, allowing Albus to snuggle into him. Lily was tipped over with all the movement and she lay on her back, her head propped against Albus’ knee, laughing her head off. 

“Happy birthday, Daddy,” James said in a slightly muffled voice.

“Love you, Potters.” Harry gave his family a collective squeeze.

“Al, what’s this behind your ear?” Ginny pushed his hair to one side and experimentally rubbed at whatever it was.

“Jamesy frowed it and I was standing there and it went all on me,” Albus explained with a solemn expression. “It was naughty.”

He clearly was of the opinion that his brother should be in trouble for whatever it was, but his explanation lacked some key details.

“What did James throw?” Ginny looked suspicious.

“The surpwise,” Albus said, pressing a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

“Don’t tell, Al!” James insisted, diving across the bed to slap his hand over his brother’s mouth. 

“I didn’t!” Albus cried, offended.

“What surprise?” Ginny still looked suspicious which concerned Harry greatly to find that she hadn’t been in on whatever this was.

“The surpwise in the kitchen,” Albus explained, looking fearfully at James as if worried he would tell him off again.

Harry swallowed with a sense of resignation and shared an exasperated look with Ginny.

“This  _ surprise _ wouldn’t happen to be cake-shaped, would it?” she said in a stage-whisper to Albus and James.

James cast a furtive look at Harry, who pretended he couldn’t hear, and nodded. “Yes, but we cleaned up all the kitchen and stuff and the ceiling.”

“The ceiling…” Ginny echoed, with a fearful expression. “What did you put in the cake, boys?” 

“ _ Two  _ chocolate frogs, flowers from the bag in the cupboard, milks and magic. Jamesy put the magic,” Albus explained helpfully. “It went so high!” 

“ _ Jamesy put the magic… so high… the ceiling,”  _ Ginny closed her eyes momentarily and then looked at Harry. “Shall we go out for breakfast as a birthday treat?” 

“Yay!” James bounced off the bed and immediately ran to the door. “Can I have pancakes? Can I have  _ three?”  _

“I want  _ eleven  _ pancakes!” Albus put in, running to follow his brother. 

Ginny leant over and kissed Harry on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Harry.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you didn’t choke on all the fluff ;)
> 
> tumblr: littlerose13writes
> 
> Rosie x


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